Lock up your boat and RV batteries, Milwaukie police say

When John Henry confronted a man stealing travel trailer batteries outside his Milwaukie home, the thief raced off on a bike towing a trailer of apparently stolen goods.

Henry, 63, ran after the man and knocked the bike trailer from the bike. The thief got away, and now Henry keeps his batteries locked inside his home, police said.

It may sound like one quirky encounter, but police are seeing a rise in battery thefts in Milwaukie and the Portland area.

At least a dozen batteries have been stolen by multiple suspects in the past month in Milwaukie, according to Milwaukie Police officer Ulli Neitch. In Portland, police pulled over a van stocked with seven suspect batteries, she said.

The thieves are going onto people's property and pulling batteries from travel trailers, boats and other recreational vehicles, Neitch reported. The thieves take the batteries, worth about $100 a pop, and sell them to recycling exchanges for about $8.

"This is the new thing. It's like metal theft. It's a new area thieves have discovered they can make money off," Neitch said. "It's gotten bad in the last three weeks."

Many of the Milwaukie thefts happened near Filbert Street, but others happened closer to downtown.

Police described the suspect who fled on a bike as man in his mid- to late thirties, about 5-foot-11, weighing about 160 pounds. He has short, straight, brown hair and light facial hair, as if unshaven. He was last seen wearing a plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans.